Teaching AP World to a classroom of mixed level students has been one of the most challenging aspects of my career, and has made me a significantly stronger educator across all of my classes. Keep reading for some simple strategies that can help you help your students earn their college credit on the AP Exam.
Although I started out highly skeptical to the concept of including non-AP level students in my AP World class, I have (thankfully) had more success than I ever anticipated, with the majority of my students not only passing the class, but also earning college credit on their exam. This is my longest post to date, but I hope that it helps anyone out there facing the daunting prospects of an AP for All classroom.
tl;dr:
Reframe your outlook on your AP Class: Identify the most important aspects of your class for students, and focus on delivering those to your students.
Maintain an AP level standard for your class. Make sure your students know that you will not accept anything less from them.
Explicitly teach AP level work and study skills. Focus on both course/content specific skills and more general skills required for academic success.
Flip your classroom: Students learn content using readings or videos at home. You then use that content to teach skills during class time.
Be open with your administrators about the prospects for your students and the support that you need from them to be successful.
Reframe your outlook on your AP class.
This was among the most important and most difficult parts of the experience for me. Like many educators, my own high school experience is often the first stone in the foundation of how I approach education. I attended a strong public school that was basically preparing us for college-level work from elementary level, resulting in AP classes that demanded a college level workload with the pre-requisite of the skills necessary to complete it. This, of course, is not unusual in suburban schools, and certainly not a unique approach to AP. However, it is also not applicable to the New York City public high school where I teach many students who were not lucky enough to be outfitted with AP skills by their elementary and middle school teachers.
When I was first informed that I was teaching AP World to students that did not meet the pre-requisite literacy skills of the course, I was extremely skeptical. Instead of giving up before I started, or vowing to teach the course as I imagined it regardless of which students were left behind, I needed to reframe my own expectations of AP World. I did this by identifying what I felt were the most important aspects of the class, and committing to delivering them to my students.
I came up with this list of ideas that would become the guiding principles of my curriculum.
General knowledge of World History from 1200-present day
Ability to draw connections between events across time periods and geographic regions, using the three AP historical reasoning skills (Causation, Comparison, and Continuity & Change)
Ability to understand, analyze, and utilize college-level sources in the study of history
Ability to articulate and support a complex argument in a college-level essay
Familiarity with the expectations of college level history
Student progress towards meeting the expectations of a college level history class and being successful on the AP Exam.
I encourage every AP teacher, but especially those in an "AP for All" style classroom, to start their curriculum planning by creating their own list, inspired by but in no way identical to your College Board course objectives. It will help you stay focused on what really matters. You will notice that "passing the AP World exam" is not on my list. I work tirelessly all year to help my students pass this exam, but at the end of the day, if they make progress towards success in a future AP or college level class, that has to be good enough for me.
Maintain an AP level standard for the class. Communicate this to your students from Day 1.
As I just explained, I do not expect my students to walk into my classroom with AP level skills and the ability to jump right into the content. However, that absolutely does not mean that my AP World class is reduced to an on-level, or even an honors level class. I feel strongly that students benefit from a true AP experience, not a lower level class masquerading as an AP.
So, you might be asking how you can keep the class at an AP Level while recognizing that your students are not necessarily at AP Level. First and foremost, be open with the students about the situation from your very first discussion of AP and very explicitly on the first day of school. As I tell my students - I am not expecting anyone to enter my class with AP or college level skills, but I am absolutely expecting them to be willing to work towards developing those skills. If they are committed to the class and willing to put in the work to improve, they are more than welcome in my AP World classroom. If not, that's fine, and they are welcome to join my non-AP Global History class.
Personally, I hate the phrase "AP for All" - It is my belief that AP is NOT for all, and that pretending it is only does a disservice to the students pressured into taking a course that they are not interested in, unprepared for, and unwilling to work for. I would rather see a hardworking and dedicated student who is not at the pre-requisite skill level than one who has the skills but is not willing to put in the work required for success. In this way, AP is not for all - It is not for those who are looking for a throwaway credit or an easy A. It is not for those who do not have the time to fit the workload into their schedule. It is not, and I cannot say this one enough, for students who are unwilling to do their homework or study for tests. In short, AP is for those who are ready and able to put in a significant amount of work, regardless of setbacks they might face during the course.
Explicitly teach AP level work/study skills.
Understanding that your students likely do not have AP level work/study skills should naturally bring you to the understanding that you need to teach these skills. And you do - explicitly, and often.
First, identify the AP level skills required to be successful in your class, and separate them into two categories: Course-Specific and General. In AP World, course specific skills include things like writing strong thesis statements, reading maps, or understanding the language of complex primary sources. These are important, but so are the general skills: how to read an upper level textbook, how to take effective notes from a lecture, or how to study for an upcoming exam. These are all skills that we, as educators, often take for granted. However, it is so important that we teach them.
A note: The most common pushback that I get from other teachers when I share this strategy with them is something along the lines of "This is an AP class, I shouldn't need to teach them how to *insert seemingly basic skill here*". In response to that, I always say the same thing. As teachers, we need to meet the students where they are in order to take them to where they need to be. If you are not willing to do that, what are you doing in the classroom?
An activity that you can use right now:
Click here for a full classroom activity focused on the AP task verbs. When I first started teaching AP, I realized, like many of you have before me, that many students knew the content but simply did not understand what the questions were asking them to do. Solution? Teach the task verbs! AP exams use the same task verbs over again in their questions. I use an entire class day (yes, I know how valuable time is in an AP class...) to teach the difference between these verbs and make sure that students know how to respond to them. It makes a world of difference.
Flip your classroom. Incorporate homework into classwork.
This might be my favorite tip in this post, because I feel that it solves a number of problems that we face as AP teachers, and especially as AP for All teachers. As a history teacher, it is tough for me to accept that the bulk of the content in an AP for All classroom will need to be done at home, instead of through direct instruction in the classroom. But, I am here to tell you that we need the classroom time to learn the skills, regardless of how much we love simply talking about history. Students can learn content on their own, but they cannot self-teach the skills - If they could, they would already know them.
My AP World students complete a reading or video every night, complete with Cornell-style notes, to learn the bulk of the content. In class the following day I spend about 10-15 minutes reviewing the most important parts of that content, and then they use their homework to complete a classwork activity. This general structure teaches the work/study skills of learning content independently, as well as allows me to incorporate skills instruction into our ever-limited class time.
But how do I get them to do the homework?
Yep, I know, homework is a sore subject with so many stakeholders - Kids don't want to do it, parents are concerned about the time spent completing it, and many administrators frown upon it. In my own school, homework is definitely discouraged, and we are only allowed to make it worth 10% of the students' grades. Regardless, nearly every student in my class completes nearly 100% of the homework assignments. So how do I get them to do it?
Explain WHY they have homework. I have only taught AP World, so I cannot speak for all AP courses, but we need homework if we want to come anywhere close to finishing the curriculum by May. Be honest with the students about this, and make it a point to explain that we do not have time to learn all of the content in class, so much of the information they will only receive via homework. As I say to them, choosing not to do the homework is choosing not to pass the course and exams.
Use the homework in class. I try to make sure that at least three days per week, the students will need the homework to successfully complete the classwork. There are many ways to do this. It might look like using their notes to complete a graphic organizer with their table, or using their notes to write a thesis statement to respond to a prompt, etc. This is also a great way to see which students completed their homework thoroughly without needing to read through every assignment.
Grade the notes. It is also a good idea to grade the notes however often you see fit. Note-taking strategies (bullet points, headings, etc.) are among the skills that I explicitly teach in AP World. I use a rubric with the strategies we are working on to quickly grade their homework notes.
Be open with your administration about the prospects for your students and the support that you need to be successful.
Let me preface this section by saying that I can count myself among the lucky teachers that have an AP who is open to listening and who tries her best to help where she can. I know that not all teachers have this, and I have not always had this myself. However responsive your administration is, it is important that you communicate with them as much as you feel comfortable when you are teaching AP for All.
AP for All is a relatively new concept, and it is quite a buzz term these days. Your administrations are likely implementing it because they genuinely believe in the concept or because they are under some sort of pressure to do so. Either way, they want your class to be successful. Especially because of the new-ness of this program, they are going to need you to tell them how it is going and what you need from them to be successful.
It can be difficult to know what types of things to communicate to your administrators in this type of situation. Here are the things that I would recommend reaching out to your administrators about:
Communicate from the beginning that teaching an AP for All class is extremely challenging and you will need their support throughout the year. Teaching this type of class can be mentally exhausting as you meet seemingly endless roadblocks without the obvious visible progress that you are accustomed to seeing in on level classes. Ask your administrator: Are you okay with me reaching out to you throughout the year when I need support teaching AP for All? The answer should (hopefully) be yes, and it will set the stage for the communication moving forward.
Alert them if you feel that a student in your class is in danger of failing their on-level state exam due to difficulties in AP. In this situation, it is crucial that you work together to best support this student - Nobody should be sacrificing their on-level exams or graduation prospects for the sake of remaining in an AP class.
Request the resources that you need to be successful - This could be a textbook, access to Youtube, access to AP Classroom, review books, etc. Even if you do not get them, it can't hurt to ask.
Ask for help if you need it. If you are struggling with something specific, and just can't seem to make it work, ask for help. Say: I am struggling with xyz in my AP class. Can you please recommend strategies or resources that might be able to help? Sometimes you will be surprised by what you get when you simply ask for help. This is also a solution-minded and productive way to make your administrators aware of problems in the classroom.
These strategies are not a panacea for the AP for All Classroom, but they have greatly contributed to my own success and will hopefully contribute to yours too.
Kommentare